Radio London "Picks to click!"

Since Radio London's discerning web-viewers are likely to be interested in more than just a list of other offshore radio sites, we have put together a collection of significant sites, relevant to the incredible story of radio, media, music and more. As many sites as possible have been included on this Links page. However, as of January 2004 the Webmasters have decided they can no longer add new links to this page.

Please note, as it has simply not been possible for us to include every link request on this page, links to other sites will often appear on another part of the Radio London site – most frequently, the Happenings pages or the Swop Shop.
(Click on an icon or link below to go to a site)

Inspired by our Big L Fab Forties, Steve Kohler in Wellington, New Zealand has spent considerable time compiling charts for his site Flavour of New Zealand. Steve tells us:

"NZ had no 'official' music charts until 1975, so I have used other charts to fill the gap to give viewers a sense of what was getting airplay here. The whole inspiration for this project came from the great enjoyment I got searching through your Fab 40 charts from the 60s. It's you guys who motivated me to ever get started on this long and trying project.

Congratulations to Steve on the hard work he has put into this mega-project. It's fascinating to discover what records people were enjoying in 'the land of the long white cloud'.
Aside from charts compiled from various sources, Steve is archiving NZ culture. The site has 'It Happened Then' – significant dates in NZ history between 1960 and 1984, 'Remember These?' – old products that are no longer available in the country and memories of old NZ TV programmes.

Most Big L fans know that the station was formulated to follow Gordon McLendon's Top Forty programming of KLIF, Dallas – Big D. Steve Eberhart runs the KLIF tribute site where you can discover the station's history and its personalities and read about the station's legendary role in the news coverage of the J F Kennedy assassination.

Big L founder Don Pierson was well aware of the success of KLIF and felt it was time to introduce American Top 40-style radio to the UK. At first, Don intended to model the station output on that of KLIF, calling it ‘KLIF London – Big L'. His original idea was to broadcast tapes of the KLIF output, from the Galaxy with the original jingles replaced by 'KLIF London' jingles. However, Don had to modify his ideas somewhat. The British public was totally unfamiliar with upbeat American radio, and in 1964, had never even heard a jingle. It was feared that this style of broadcasting was too innovative to attract conservative British advertisers, so the station became Radio London - Big L and presented the Top Forty format in its own unique and somewhat toned-down way, enhanced by its own collection of broadcasters.

In view of Radio London's pirate history, it's extremely appropriate that the KLIF logo was KLIF the talking parrot (left)! KLIF was also known as 'the mighty 1190'; when the Galaxy served as the USS Density in WWII, ironically she was called 'the Mighty Little D'.

Steve Eberhart runs the KLIF tribute site where you can discover the station's history and its personalities and read about the station's legendary role in the news coverage of the J F Kennedy assassination.

Francis K is webmaster of the Irish '60s Showbands & Beat-Groups Archive, an "Online archive of photographs, records, record sleeves, lyrics, books, magazines, stories dealing with Irish bands in the 1960s".

It's a great site, giving a fascinating insight into a thriving music scene about which most of us outside of Ireland have remained totally ignorant. We got Major Minor, the Dubliners and David McWilliams!

When Canadian radio personality and bilingual voice talent Marc Denis who wrote from Québec to tell us about his fascinating site The 98 CKGM Super 70s Tribute Page, he did not know he would spark off other fascinating memories.

Radio London fan, Keith Milborrow, wrote about how he was in Montréal for the World's Fair in August 1967. Keith's full story is in Mini-memories, while Marc's own story of his broadcasting hero Roger Scott, is in Otherwaves.

The many fans of the late Roger Scott will be delighted to hear about our friend Marc Denis' website tribute to Montreal's 1470 CFOX. There are a couple of album sleeves for compilations in a series called '1470 CFOX Good Guys Gold' featuring photos of all the jocks of the time, including Roger, and Marc says he has much more great memorabilia on the way. Marc explains:

It's finally online at MarcDenis.Com! Marc Denis' 1470 CFOX Montreal Radio Archive, salutes the little suburban Pointe-Claire Qc station that could…and did, from 1960 to 1977.

This station gave my former Top 40 alma mater 980 CKGM (among others) quite the battle in Montreal during the late-Sixties. 1470 CFOX was the station our good friend Roger Scott appeared on before returning to Britain to join the launch of Capital Radio in the early 70s and following his short stint at North Eastern US powerhouse WPTR in 1966. Rog' entertained brilliantly at 1470 from December 1966 until late 1971, a five-year tenure interrupted only by a brief six-month contract dispute 'exile' in Nova Scotia. Fans of your site might be interested in checking out how Roger sounded on Canadian Top 40 radio back then in the ''Fox Calls'' section of the Archive.

Among other personalities of the era, you might also want to lend an ear to his 1470 CFOX colleague of the time, the wild and wonderful Charles P. Rodney Chandler. Rog' and Chuckie were the two exclusive radio guys to broadcast their respective shows on 1470 CFOX from Room 1742 at Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel during the John Lennon Bed-In of May, 1969.

Bob Mitchell runs the tribute site to WOLF 1490 in Syracuse, New York. Listeners to WOLF in its heyday were as loyal as Radio London's "At only 1000/250 watts it beat stations 20 times its size." Bob's fascinating collection of photos, memorabilia and airchecks from the 1950s to early 80s, ensures that the much-loved station will never be forgotten.

Of course WOLF also has an offshore radio connection. One of the DJs was Howie Castle, who borrowed the name Bud Ballou from a former WOLF jock when he broadcast on Radio Caroline in 1967/8.
The Wireless Waffle website is where "The site visitor is reminded briefly how offshore radio had such an impact in the sixties". Great Radio Stations Past and Present, are naturally featured and the Waffler has some wonderful Big L memories and reminiscences of Kenny and Cash.

The Dutch Download Group is a club site where offshore radio tapes are uploaded for members to share. The members pay Fl 10,00 (for a year) for the web space and data transfer.
The Northern Star International Broadcasters AS website has information about the company, the history of the project, and the team involved. The Norwegian company maintains that its projected radio station on 216 AM will have a huge day-time signal over The North Atlantic, Southern Scandinavia, the Northern part of Continental Europe, the Benelux countries and the British Isles, but like all European AM stations, it will encounter night-time interference.
Anfrando Maiola 'The real Koto' has an Italian music site which at first appearances might seem to be solely about current disco, but it does contain some surprises.
For instance, there's a feature, a photo and audio of a star of Big L '97 and 2001 – our good friend Tony Currie! As usual, Tony is shown with his impressive twelve-incher in his hand.
Alan Field recommends Steve's Radio and Railroads website. He says:
"You can hear other stations' versions of the PAMS jingles that the pirates commissioned for themselves, the full versions of other stations' jingles that the pirates "pirated" and edited for general use, and a lot of other PAMS jingles that were never aired over here but are in a similar style and very interesting to hear. The site includes a tribute to WQAM in Miami Florida, with further examples of some familiar-sounding jingles that PAMS made for them.

Roy and John Grayson's site dedicated to The Peddlers, who appeared in the Fab Forty several times.

Trying to define the band's music is difficult, but the sleeve notes of Fontana's 'The Fantastic Peddlers' LP helps. Roy Phillips (organ and vocals) says:

"We are discovering that it is possible to bridge the gap between strict pop, uncompromising jazz and what some people call quality pop music. We end up with a sort of pop-art-jazz, which we hope appeals at all levels. We try and steer clear of preaching or attempting to convert an audience to one type of music." Sounds good!

The band's residency at London's Pickwick Club attracted such impressive clientele as the Rolling Stones, Annie Ross and Richard Harris. The Peddlers were the first British pop group to have a six-week season in Las Vegas.

In February '67, Chuck Blair, sitting in for Ed Stewart at 3 pm, introduced a new theme tune to his show, Gassin', the B-side of Peddlers' single I've Got To Hold On. In May of the same year, The Peddlers were to be found playing on the Radio London stand at Biggin Hill Air Display. The singleWhat'll I Do was Ed Stewart's Big L's Fab Forty climber of 26th March '67 and peaked at number 5 in the Fab of 23rd April '67.
(Big L Info - Brian Long's 'The London Sound')

Update, May 2004:

Alf West launched a website for Roy Phillips, who now lives in New Zealand.

Martin van der Ven's is one of the longest-lived and most comprehensive offshore sites. He never fails to astonish us with how he manages to keep abreast with constant updates and somehow finds time to co-organise the annual Radio Day in Amsterdam. Well done, Martin!
It goes without saying that our viewers love Sixties radio, but those of you who also enjoy the TV, films and magazines of the era, will love browsing through Clint's Sixties City. Fans of Caroline Munro will be delighted to hear that she has a section all to herself as do the two gorgeous Men From U.N.C.L.E. Take me to the nearest dry cleaner!
Robin's museum is a far cry from the dusty places where luckless schoolchildren were taken to in the Sixties to be bored to death. In the virtual glass cases, you'll find "Offshore and world-wide commercial radio with pictures, history, audio, a radio museum and our own unique digital Internet station Golden Radio International. I feature a complete archive recording every month, as well as a music show presented in the style of the former offshore stations."
We tried to warn Pat Edison against giving up his life to run a Radio Kaleidoscope site, but would he listen?

While on a trip to Florida in 2000, we got to visit what may be the biggest vinyl warehouse in the world, with over two million records – Bananas. Some of their stock is listed, but there's so much of it that it can't all be catalogued. Often, to find that longed-for recording, you have to ask. We had a very good chat with Doug, the owner, who certainly knows his music and radio!

After searching since the 60s, Chris found a decent copy of Keely Smith's 'Lennon/McCartney Songbook'.

You can find Bananas at www.musicfinder.com. Tell them Mary and Chris sent you!

Hans Knot has his own website, where you can read current and archive editions of his famous International Newsletter. Hans also has a wonderful collection of photographs and soundbites on his Soundscapes site www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes
Chris Edwards from Offshore Echoes magazine has a fascinating section devoted to Offshore Theme Tunes. www.offshoreechos.com/offshorethemes
www.keithskues.co.uk is the domain of the one-and-only Cardboard Shoes.
A tribute site to the late Mike Raven, Programme Controller of Radio 390 and R & B pioneer can be found at www.bodminmoor.co.uk/churtonfairman
Howard Peters has an excellent site paying tribute to Cuddly Ken. It also contains several soundbites of the master of the tape and razor blade. Howard also has another site, freeradio.co.ukradio, covering some of the many land-based pirates, with numerous soundbites and jingles.
Look out for your phone bill! Norman Barrington's collection of jingles is incredible. He takes requests, and you must check out the new MP3 tracks. They're so good, a DJ friend plays one of them on-air! Norman has a lot more radio stuff on there too.

Caroline's Graham L Hall ia a DJ, compére, broadcaster and a presenter. Busy man! The Spirit 2 site contains some great pix of the Radio Caroline's former studios in Maidstone and the Ross Revenge, which he calls 'Big Red Magnet'.
Congratulations to the BBC-approved Pirate Radio Hall of Fame, which achieved the honour of becoming Radio 2 Website of the Week. In 2007, the site received even greater acclaim when it was awarded the 'Radi' award for Offshore Radio Writers and Historians, at the Dutch Radio Day. Thanks to Webmaster Jonathan's hard work, there are not many remaining Sixties offshore DJs still awaiting their place in the Hall, and their entries are accompanied by a huge collection of memorable audio clips. Chris and Mary have to admit to being somewhat biased about the brilliance of this site, having assisted with its birth. Jonathan is a Certified Anorak (we know – we certified him!) who really knows his stuff. A great deal of work has gone into the site's construction, and attention to detail includes such gems as the theme tunes used by each DJ. A treasure chest of pirate booty, which is now covering the Seventies as well as the Sixties.
The definitive purveyor of jingles and IDs for radio stations, probably the world over. The majority of offshore stations had PAMS jingles in their collection, not always from legitimate sources! There are lots of jingles soundbites available on the site – see how many you can sing along with. You'll be surprised how many you already know! There is also a full history of PAMS.
Allan M. Sniffen has a site dedicated to the original New York station, WABC at www.musicradio77.com. It was one of the biggest and best-known US stations in the 60s and beyond, with possibly some of the most famous jingle packages, produced by PAMS, naturally. The site contains lists of WABC jingles, plenty of downloadable sound files of programme clips, and much more. Sadly, in 1982 WABC became yet another talk station.
Searching for a particular American DJ? 440 International may have the answer. Their alphabetical lists detail the careers of a vast number of US jocks.
Where US DJs were and where they are now. (Look up Howie Castle...)
Hilarious moments in radio, captured for posterity. Utterly brilliant!


If you're in radio, wish you were, or have something of a passing interest in it, then you HAVE to remove those rose-coloured glasses and peruse the hilarious KRUD site.
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